Awakenings
by Grey Wolf4
Summary: Gundam WingEvangelion crossover. It has been 400 years since the averted Third Impact, the survivors of NERV in cryogenic suspension awaken to a new world, new possibilities, new problems and new challenges. Co written by Random 1377.
1. From Here to Eternity

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Awakenings

By GreyWolf

(with a little backup from Random1377)

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Disclaimers: I do not own the rights to either Neon Genesis Evangelion or Gundam Wing – that honour goes (respectively) to Studio Gainax animation and Bandai Entertainment. Should either company, or any of their affiliates, request it, this story will be removed from the web. Thank you.

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Prologue – From Here to Eternity

Dogma – the belief in things felt, but not seen… the foundation of any religious faith. Shinji Ikari had never been a religious man, a detail he would readily admit, should anyone bring the topic up, but as Central Dogma – the heart of NERV's complicated underground installation – shook around him, he found himself wondering if maybe he had been foolish not to believe in something.

It was not the looming threat of death that had him questioning himself, nor was it even the guilt he felt over being forced to kill Kaworu Nagisa, the seventeenth angel (and Shinji's only friend) less than thirteen hours prior. No, what shook Shinji's reality the most was the deep, tender kiss he was receiving from his guardian, Misato Katsuragi.

He stood frozen as the purple-haired woman held her lips to his, completely unprepared for the emotional bombardment this simple act rained down on his fragile psyche. _Why?_ he wanted to sob, _why are you being that gentle with me? I don't deserve it!!_

Misato broke away from the kiss with a forced smile. "That was an adult kiss," she managed, her face contorting with pain, "w-when you get back, we'll… do rest…"

Shinji stood with his back to the closed elevator door; a plethora of emotions overcoming him as his guardian started to pull away. It had already been several hours since the siege of NERV headquarters had begun – for reasons that Shinji did not know and did not care to know. What did it matter to him? He was worthless – weak… completely unable to protect anyone or anything that mattered to him. For all he knew, everyone in the installation was dead, besides him and Misato.

…and from the looks of it, Misato was not going to be with him much longer.

__

Just one more person to say goodbye to, he thought dismally, _you'd think I'd be used to it by now._

Misato coughed twice and slumped down on Shinji's shoulder; the sudden weight pressing on his body back into the elevator's metal security fence. "You… should go," she coughed, fumbling for the keypad that would open the fence and send Shinji safely up to the EVA cages.

__

Too… weak, she thought desperately, _damn fingers – come on!_

The world greyed at the edges as the last of Misato's strength left her legs, catching Shinji off guard as he struggled to hold her upright. Slowly, he eased himself down to the floor, bringing her with him as some of the malaise that had seized him wore off.

She was hurt… badly. No matter his own feelings of abandonment, he could not quite bring himself to simply let her fall to the floor like a bag of discarded garbage. "Misato," he panted, shaking her lightly as her eyes slipped closed. "It's… it's not bad, right? You said it's not that bad…"

Misato's eyelids fluttered. "Mmm?" she hummed. "Shinji? No… no I'm fine, just... tired..."

Shinji was on the verge of replying when he became aware of an odd flavor permeating his mouth. _Tastes like I was sucking on a penny,_ he thought, refusing to acknowledge what, exactly, that taste could be even as he touched the corner of his mouth with his forefinger.

"Mi…Misato?" Shinji said, a note of pleading desperation colouring his voice – as if he was begging her to say that she would be okay.

He quickly wiped his finger on his pants, pretending that he did not see the smear of red that stained them.

Misato's eyes opened again, but she could only smile as she placed an object in Shinji's free hand… her cross pendant – the one given to her by her mother before her death – its blocky edges horribly smoothed by the copious blood covering the woman's trembling fingers.

With this last act, Misato's world lurched from grey to black, her body slowly growing limp against Shinji's as he desperately tried to get her to say something – anything – to show that she could hear him.

"Misato, hold on!" the boy cried, feeling sweat break out all over his body as his eyes suddenly began burning with hot tears. "Misato, please hold on! Misato…"

When there was still no reply, Shinji leaned back against the elevator's fence, softly stroking her dark hair as he quietly began to sob.

"Hold it right there kid!" a voice to Shinji's left boomed, the sound of a gun cocking punctuating the statement with the finality of a period typed at the end of a judge's death sentence. From the corner of his eye, Shinji could see four of the soldiers who had been trailing them working their way through the heavy security door that had brought him and Misato to this place.

One of them was levelling a nine-millimetre handgun at the Third's head, an expression of wicked triumph on his face as his team-mates clambered laboriously through the opening.

Shinji continued to cradle Misato's still body in his arms. "Go ahead," he whispered hollowly, forcing himself to keep his eyes open… wanting his last vision on this Earth to be that of someone he had once believed cared about him.

__

I've got nothing left anyway.

The soldier nodded, walking right up and pressing the barrel of his gun against the boy's temple. "Proceeding with termination," he said coldly. "See you in Hell, k-"

"Hold it!"

One of the other soldiers held up a hand.

Shinji waited in silence for the end to come, knowing that even if he wanted to there was nothing he could do to stop it. _You were wrong about me, Misato,_ he thought miserably, _I AM just a coward…_

"Change of plans," the solider said, motioning for the team's medic to come forward. "Sedate… detain… retrieve, those are the new mission parameters – all Children and top-level support personal are designated Alpha priority."

"Aww screw that," the solider with his gun against Shinji's head muttered disgustedly. "You know what these freaks have been doing here?? There's no way we can just let them wal-"

"That's an order," the first solder cut in calmly, putting his hand on the butt of his pistol. "You're not disobeying, are you? I'd hate to have to act on that new Executive Order that calls for summery execution of-"

"I get it!" the second soldier snapped, pulling his gun away from Shinji's head. "I get it…"

"Good."

Shinji made no move to stop the men as the medic came forward, pulling out a hypodermic and filling it with some clear liquid from a vial on his hip. "What about the other one?" the man asked, holding the needle up and tapping its side to knock the air bubbles to the top. "She's still breathing."

"Is she anyone important?" the first soldier murmured.

"Eh, could be Katsuragi," the medic shrugged, nodding for the remaining two soldiers to take hold of Shinji – which they did with far more force than was necessary. "Fits the description."

"Why can't these damn people wear IDs?" the captain groaned, rubbing his eyes in a pained fashion. "Yeah, do what you can to patch her up and we'll take her with – I don't want the general breathing down my neck if we let one of their new POWs die."

"POWs, huh?" the medic chuckled, shaking his head as he pulled Shinji's shirt up and slapped him smartly on the upper arm to make his veins stand out. "Well, I guess this IS war…"

"Hey," the captain muttered, "they called it down on themselves. Personally, I'm with Nishimura – I say waste the lot of them – assholes playing God REALLYpiss me off… but orders are orders."

Nodding, the medic jabbed the needle into Shinji's arm, ignoring the boy's gasp of pain and pressing the plunger to send the sedative into his body. "They'll get what's coming to them," he said sagely, yanking the needle out and turning his attention to the woman on the floor. "Not too sure this one's gonna make it, though, she's lost a lot of blood… can't we just say she was dead when we found her?"

Through the fog that was slowly settling over him, Shinji tried to whisper, "No… save her – I'm the one that deserves to die…" but no matter how hard he tried, he could not make his mouth work.

"Orders are orders," the captain repeated, "do what you can – if she dies on the way, oh well, but we were ordered to try."

Shinji's vision began to darken around the edges as the medic sighed heavily and knelt on the floor. "Right, right," the man grumbled, "I'll just…"

Whatever the man was going to 'just' do, Shinji never found out. The darkness tickling the corners of his eyes suddenly reached out and seized his senses, sending him spiralling down into a deep, thankfully dreamless sleep.

- - - - -

General Yoshikazu Tsuge stood with his hands clasped tightly behind his back as he oversaw the taking of massive complex. Everything was going quite smoothly – particularly the battles between his troops and the pathetically trained 'security' personnel of NERV. It had only been 20 minutes since he had received the change of orders, of course, so it was perfectly understandable that some of his troops might not have gotten the instruction to stand down just yet.

__

Can't be helped, he thought smugly as a desperate cry rang out over the walkie-talkie on his belt, quickly followed by a burst of automatic gunfire. _Less prisoners means less paperwork anyway – and as long as the top brass and those damn monsters of theirs are secured, no one's going to bitch about a few more body bags._

He focused his attention, however, as he heard his name called through the walkie-talkie. "This is Captain Nakamura from second platoon," the voice reported after Tsuge had acknowledged it. "We have taken the Third Child and Major Katsuragi into custody. Katsuragi has been wounded but is being treated by the medics – forty percent survival probability. Team four reports that they have found the Second Child – alive but heavily sedated – and Dr. Akagi, both of whom are in custody… though it is my understanding that Akagi injured several of Sadamoto's men and had to be forcefully subdued."

"We won't tell their wives," Tsuge replied sardonically, "get the prisoners ready for transport."

"This is Sunaga, from third squad," another voice cut in, sounding annoyed, "have encountered stiff resistance, request permission to use grenades."

"Request denied!" Tsuge snapped. "Reinforcements are coming to your location, do not…I repeat – do not use explosives. We cannot risk damaging the MAGI. Carry on."

Tsuge stroked his moustache as he wondered why NERV had not deployed their Evangelions. He heard that they were powered for a maximum of almost ten minutes without an 'umbilical cable,' and while he trusted the bakelite insertion he had ordered, he was not one hundred percent sure that it could actually hold the behemoths, should the pilots truly unleash them.

__

I wonder how Kuramoto's doing. he mused, glancing at the radio as if expecting it to suddenly burst to life with the man's voice. _He and his troops should have reached the command centre by now…_

- - - - -

A sense of doom added to the tense atmosphere that filled the command centre as each of the bridge crew could plainly see position after position in the Geofront being completely overrun, wave after wave of JSDF soldiers storming through NERV's defences as if they did not exist. On the monitors, though, something had changed. If they were not dead or wounded, the NERV employees were being allowed to surrender themselves, dragged off-screen by gruff-looking soldiers to points unknown even as the wounded were… silenced.

Here and there, occasional skirmishes still broke out between NERV's security officers and the invading JSSDF troops… but they were plainly one-sided, with the valiant NERV employees being swept aside like wheat before a scythe.

"Isn't real," Maya Ibuki was whispering to herself, her fingers flying on the keyboard of her laptop as Shigeru Aoba and Hyouga Makoto desperately tried to return the fire of the few JSSDF troops that had managed to get through their hastily constructed barricade.

The gun Aoba had thrust into her hands lay next to her knee – discarded… but not forgotten as the young technician scrambled to find a way out of their situation.

"Isn't real, it isn't real… isn't real, it isn't real…"

Over and over she whispered these simple, comforting words, praying that any minute, she would wake up in her bed, clutching the teddy bear her father had given her when she was four and sighing as she rolled over to go back to sleep.

But there is no waking when the nightmare is real.

"Ibuki," Aoba shouted, bracing his rifle against his shoulder and letting off a controlled burst so as not to waste ammo, "pick it up – they're breaking through!!"

"C-can't," Maya sobbed, blinking away tears as she continued searching through her files. "There has to be another way – there has to!"

"Idiot!" the other tech cried. "We're all going to die here if we don't stick tog-"

"Watch out!"

Makoto's cry of warning came too late, and the soldier that had been training his aim on Aoba opened fire, catching the man in the shoulder and sending to the floor with a strangled cry.

"Shigeru!!"

"Nobody move!" one of the soldiers cried, bringing his gun to bear on Makoto. "You don't have a chance – don't make me use grenades, son."

Makoto wet his lips, taking stock of his options. _Aoba's down,_ he thought nervously, _Maya's… useless,_ he glanced around as he realized that the command centre had gone deathly silent. _All the other techs are waiting for me to make up my mind – damn it, how did I become the leader?!_

Clearing his throat, he addressed the soldier up at the head of the small brigade. "I want your guarantee that-"

"Don't make me laugh," the man cut in dismissively, "there's no guarantees here, son – besides the one that says you're going to die if you don't drop that gun in the next five seconds."

Makoto took another look around. "Your word, then," he said quietly, slowly easing his hands off of the gun's stock, "that the women stay untouched."

The soldier snorted. "We're JSSDF, son," he said proudly, "not thugs. This is your last chance. Drop the gun."

Seeing that he had no choice, Makoto lowered the rifle to the floor, feeling sick to his stomach as the techs all around the command centre followed suit. _Because of me,_ he thought disgustedly, _they're following my lead…_

As the solider stepped past him, Makoto whispered, "Man to man – as a personal favour… the woman behind me is weak. Please don't hurt her."

The soldier eyed him for a minute, then nodded, pitching his voice equally low as he replied, "There's no shame here, son… you fought bravely, even though you knew you were outmatched – I can respect that." His eyes flicked over to Maya for a moment before returning to Makoto's face. "I'll take care of her."

"Thank you, sir."

"All of you – get away from your stations!" one of the other soldiers shouted.

The techs did as they were told, raising their hands high with a visible air of defeat as the JSSDF soldiers closed in.

"Now get down on the ground and spread 'em!"

Everyone obeyed, knowing that even a hint of rebellion could easily result in a quick, painful death. The JSSDF soldiers quickly rounded the technicians up, leaving the core trio of Makoko, Maya, and Aoba clustered around the leader of the insertion team, a medic crouching next to Aoba and tending to his wound with a clear air of distaste.

"Sunaga did WHAT!?" the solider exploded, momentarily losing his composure as he pressed his walkie-talkie tightly to his ear. "Oh this is just great! Tsuge's NOT going to like this." Maya could not hear the other side of the conversation, but the soldier's tone was clearly unamused as he replied, "Understood. Yes, we've just secured the command centre, casualties were-" he cut himself off in mid-sentence when he noticed that Maya, Makoto and Aoba, were all hanging on his every word. "Get them out of here," the solider said to his second in command, grabbing the other man's arm as he turned away.

"Be gentle with the woman."

"Yes, sir."

The three techs were lead through the chaos of Central Dogma to the surface of the Geofront, where a light rain hand begun to fall. As the procession of captured personnel neared a line of troop transports, Maya saw Evangelion Units 01 and 02 being loaded onto Neopath carriers, and though the crowd she was sure she saw Major Katsuragi stretched out on the hood of a jeep with a series of IVs hooked to her arms and a deathly pallor around her normally healthy face. Maya cried out, though, as she spied one of the soldiers carrying Shinji's limp body, but as she was about to break away, she spotted someone else.

"Commander Ikari!" she cried, waving frantically as the man was led past. "Commander Ikari!! Over here!"

The elder Ikari glanced up at her, his eyes bright and crafty behind the tinted lenses of his glasses, and after a moment, he inclined his head, squaring his shoulders and marching with his back ramrod straight towards a waiting helicopter.

Before Maya could call out to him again, she was at the troop carrier and one of the soldiers was helping her up inside to join well over fifty of her fellow NERV employees. Slowly, she sank down on one of the benches in the carrier and put her head in her hands, trying not to sob as the door was slammed shut with horrible, resounding finality.

- - - - -

Shinji woke up groggy and disoriented, clutching his head as he forced himself into a sitting position. "Where…?"

He glanced around, finding himself in a spartan holding cell. It was painted a dull, flat grey, and had only a sink, toilet and the bunk he was sitting on. Looking down at himself, Shinji found that he was still wearing the same clothes… complete with the heavy staining of Misato's blood.

__

Misato… he thought, burying his face in his hands as his emotions threatened to overwhelm him. _She could be dead now because of me – because I couldn't do anything! God, I just want to die!!_ Guilt – unlike any he had experienced before – slid easily through the cracks in his carefully constructed armour of apathy. _Why did I throw them away?_ he thought miserably. _ I could have at least TRIED to help them… and now they're probably all dead – just because I wanted to run away…._

Unable to contain it any longer, Shinji burst into tears, his hands covering his face to muffle the sobs.

__

How many are dead? How many are dead because of ME?!

After ten minutes, his sobs trailed off to sniffles, leaving him feeling scraped out and empty. He blinked, wiping his eyes as he heard muffled voices though the cell's door. His breath caught, however, as he caught the words, "…rd they got Katsuragi, too – you know, the operations director?"

__

Misato!?

Shinji shot to his feet, racing to the door and pressing his ear against, his senses straining to pick up the rest of the conversation.

"Yeah," a voice – one of the soldiers that had taken him in – was saying, "I was on the team that got her. She was all messed up, but I guess they managed to keep her alive."

__

Oh thank God… Shinji slumped against the door. _Thank… God…_

"Were they many other survivors?" another voice was asking. "I know they were pretty rough when they went in."

"Well," the first voice said, "not many IMPORTANT people. I know that they found the Second Child all doped up, so she wasn't hard to get a hold of, and Third Squad found the First Child floating in a pool of some yellow stuff… guess she didn't even ask who they were, she just went with them without saying a word. The other units captured some others, I guess, but I don't know who…"

__

They got Rei and Asuka also!? Shinji thought, unsure of why he was surprised by this detail._ Who else?_

As if echoing his thoughts, the second soldier said, "What about the Commander?"

"He's dead," came the flat reply. "Inuyama from Second Squad killed him – guess he tried to make a break for it… killed a couple guys. You know Inuyama – he's about as tight as they get – he just snapped and put two rounds through Ikari's head before anyone could stop him. I also heard they found some kind of _thing _growing on Ikari's hand. The docs are trying to remove it, but when I asked for more detail, all I got was that 'need to know basis' crap!"

"Man," the second soldier muttered, "this whole operation gives me the creeps. "What's with this change of plans, anyway? Why save these people? They're sick… all of them."

"Hell if I know," the first soldier snorted. "Personally, just seeing that Ikari kid made me want to ice him – but the Captain stopped me." There was a deep sigh. "So when will they be ready?"

"In about three days, I hear…" came the reply. "Hey, did you see that new issue of SportRifle? That new Hammerli is looking pretty sweet! It's…"

Shinji backed away from the door, his mind struggling to keep up with the influx of new information.

__

Ready for what? What's going to be ready? he wondered, though somehow… he had a distinct impression that he would not like the answer. Suddenly, had never been so afraid for himself or the ones he cared for. Dark forces were in motion, and all he could do was keep his head above water and hope for the best. Running away was no longer an option – no matter how appealing it sounded. Misato was hurt, Asuka and Rei were both captured, and his father… his father was dead, leaving no one he could rely on but himself.

Somehow, he told himself, he had to find a way to be strong.

With a quiet hiss, the door to his cell opened, revealing a middle-aged man with cropped, dark hair, brown eyes and a moustache. His shoulders were broad and powerful, giving him an intimidating presence, and Shinji could clearly recognize the markings on his uniform as those denoting a JSSDF General.

"So you're the Third Child huh?" the man said without preamble. "I'm General Tsuge, Japanese Strategic Self Defence Force."

"What happened to Misato?" Shinji asked immediately, trying to sound braver than he felt. "Is she okay?"

"Ah Major Katsuragi will be fine, given some time to recover," the general replied, mildly impressed by the boy's boldness in the face of adversity, "Your father, however, is another case…"

Shinji frowned, waving the update on his father away. He already knew that man's fate… and in all honesty, there was only the barest pangs of sadness for his passing. "What about Ayanami?" he asked hesitantly, "And Asuka? Are there-"

"I'm not here to answer your questions," Tsuge cut in coolly, "I just wanted to see you for myself before we really begin this operation."

"I don't… understand," Shinji admitted.

"Get some rest kid," Tsuge said softly, refusing to elaborate as turned around and stepped back through the door. "It's going to be a long journey."

- - - - -

Misato's return to consciousness was accompanied by the most pain she had ever felt in her life, making her groan weakly as she tried in vain to rise to a sitting position. Glancing down, it was not hard to see why sitting up was impossible. She chuckled weakly, pulling gamely at the restraints at her wrists and ankles.

__

Yeah, I'm a dangerous one alright, she thought, wincing as fresh pain washed over her with every breath. _Couple broken ribs… huge hole in my back – at this rate I might be able to overpower a nurse, if she's weak, and make it all the way to the bathroom in a mad dash for freedom._

A second glance showed that she was wearing a hospital gown, and leaning her head back on the bed showed her the clean, antiseptic white ceiling of a hospital room.

"Ok," she muttered, clearing her throat as she found her voice rusty and unnervingly weak, "so they want me alive." Her eyes widened as a moment later, the reason for her injury jolted back into her mind.

__

Shinji! she thought frantically, working her wrists in the straps and trying to pull the heavy Velcro free. _What happened…? Shinji, where are you??_

Slowly, her struggles ceased, sweat rolling freely down her face as she collapsed against the bed. "Shinji," she groaned, clearly recalling the feel of the bullet slamming into her back and Shinji's arms gently folding her in a protective embrace.

__

Must've blacked out after that, she thought, closing her eyes against the harsh white of the unfamiliar ceiling. _I hope he's okay… and what about everyone else? Who else made it?_

Since she had been taken alive, it was probable that Shinji would have been as well. This thought calmed her racing heart somewhat, allowing her to relax on the bed and wait for someone to come tell her what her fate was going to be.

Misato knew only that the JSSDF wanted them kept alive – otherwise, they would have let her bleed to death and put a bullet through Shinji's head on the spot

__

...but what do they want us FOR??

Shivering, Misato closed her eyes, deciding that whatever plans the JSSDF might have for capturing them, it certainly was not going to be as restful or quiet as death…

- - - - -

Three days later, a fleet of transports came to a top secret facility somewhere on the continent of Europe. Tsuge stepped carefully off of his helicopter, moving a safe distance away from the blades before saluting the American man in his early fifties, wearing the uniform of a United States Army General.

"General Yoshikazu Tsuge, Japanese Strategic Self Defence Force."

"General Edward Barnes, United States Army."

"Is the facility ready for our guests?" Tsuge asked calmly, trying to hide his dislike of the American.

Americans were always so brash and boastful, and Barnes, Tsuge knew from personal experience, was one of the worst of their culture – a loud, gung-ho cowboy who enjoyed nothing so much as blowing things up and crushing enemies beneath his feet.

__

Well, Tsuge thought idly as Barnes confirmed that everything was in order, _if this operation goes as planned, he'll get to stomp anyone he pleases._

"Please follow me."

Tusge nodded, marching side by side with Barnes and making sure the man did not get TOO far ahead of him. He was not a schnauzer to be led around by the nose – he was the leader of the JSSDF's Eastern force, damn it! Sure, this facility was technically under Barnes' command, but Tsuge still felt that he deserved some measure of respect.

After all, he was the one responsible for securing the test subjects and their hardware.

"Any thoughts about what we should call this organization?" Barnes asked, producing a keycard from one of his pockets as they approached a heavily armoured door.

Tsuge nodded, opening his mouth to reply… but before he could speak, Barnes slid the card through the reader next to the door, and a blast of frigid air washed over the JSSDF general, taking his breath away.

"C-cold," Tsuge stammered, shivering in spite of his resolve not to show any weakness.

Barnes, the Japanese man noted with some relief, was also shaking. "It'll be a lot colder once we get the operation under way," he said, grabbing a pair of parkas off of a peg just inside the door. "Here, this will help – it has heating coils built into the lining."

Tsuge quickly threw the parka on, feeling the warmth immediately bleeding into his skin.

"Now," Barnes said, shrugging into his own coat as he led the other man to a long flight of descending stairs. "What were you saying about a name?"

"Ahh, yes," Tsuge said, grasping the handrail and starting down towards the installation where history would be made. "I was thinking of something like the Global Earth Alliance… or perhaps the Earth Sphere Coalition – but there's no rush."

He grinned as he thought of the miracles that would be uncovered and distilled here – miracles to benefit the entire human race. His spirits lifted, as did his footsteps, and Barnes nodded as the Japanese man voiced one of the oldest adages in either of their cultures.

"We have all the time in the world."

To Be Continued…

Preview for next episode.

400 years have passed since the averted Third Impact… and humanity now wears a very different face. The species itself remains largely unchanged, but the chosen environment of these would-be rulers of the universe has moved upward and outward – the fingers of mankind stretching like a curious infant to the very stars themselves and establishing massive, orbiting wonders known simply as 'the colonies.'

The names of NERV, EVA, Ikari, and others associated with that dark time have faded into obscurity. No longer do the children of the world look to the past, fearful of repeating its mistakes, but grope blindly towards the unseen future, surrounding themselves with technology gleaned from sources long forgotten, and left wisely buried in the shrouds of time.

But it is a time of unrest in this new era. The United Earth Sphere Alliance, fearing the colonies' separation and advancing technology, assassinate colonial leader Heero Yuy… and the shot is felt as a stinging blow of oppression, echoing through all of the colonies and sparking a massive, bloody revolution.

To counter the Alliance's tyranny, Rebel citizens have assembled and launched five advanced mobile suits known as Gundams to the surface of the Earth with orders to liberate the planet from the stranglehold the Alliance holds there.

The time for war is at hand… blood will soon flow… and in a long-abandoned facility, on a once proud continent now wallowing in poverty and sadness, one of the Gundam pilots is about to awaken a force left sleeping for two centuries… and change the course of history forever.

GreyWolf's notes: I always wanted to do a Gundam Wing/Evangelion crossover.

Random's notes: I don't really have anything I can think of that I want to note on this first chapter, since things are just getting started and all the plot lines are still pretty basic. If things get TOO confusing… well, I probably won't note anything then, either – so here's hoping it stays easy to follow. : ) Hope you like it so far!


	2. Awakenings

**Awakenings**

**Chapter 1 – Awakenings**

A.C. 195 

It was cold…unusually cold for late August in Western Europe. The wind snapped cruelly across the plains, biting deep into the skin of anyone unfortunate enough to be outdoors and threatening frostbite, should they tarry unprotected for any more than a few minutes. Atop a rocky outcropping, a lone, long-abandoned military facility sat, brooding over the tumultuous waves of the Atlantic like a spoiled child, its sightless, concrete walls watching almost imperiously as the waters crashed into the jagged rocks below.

Deep inside this relic of years past, computer terminals sat in orderly rows, their cold tubes coated with a mixture of the dust of ages and the faintest coating of frost… a testament to disuse and failing insulation. Yet even in this desolate place, the spark of life was not to be stopped. Circuits left un-stimulated for centuries nearly popped as energy derived from unseen generators – buried deep under the mantle of the Earth itself – flooded them, coaxing them grudgingly out of their hibernation. One of the screens blipped on, its light shining on once-comfortable computer chairs, now long since gone to rot, and scrolling simple words in unexciting green text.

'Subject:'

The screen hesitated for several seconds, as if unsure of how best to proceed, before finally resuming, 'Katsuragi…Misato. Designate: Major/Operations Director, NERV, First Branch.'

The writing winked out, replacing itself with the cryptic message, 'Security breach in sector L32… Facility 01682 current status: compromised. Protocol 093478… engaged.'

From the floor just past the terminal, a cylindrical case slid into view with a soft hiss, its dense polyurethane cover distorting the features of the person within and making her completely unrecognizable. A small, digital readout on the side of the cylinder announced, 'Resuscitation in progress… five minutes remaining. Standby…'

Silence reigned as the timer on the case slowly made its way to zero.

There was a breathless pause as the case's cover rolled back, unveiling the woman for the world to see. "Huh!" she gasped sharply, breaking the silence as her back arched up off the formfitting bed. "Wha…?" sitting up, she clutched her head, drawing in deep lungfuls of bitterly cold air and shaking from head to toe as the display on her capsule changed to read, 'conditions unfavourable… activating warming unit.'

She groaned with relief as the sides of her capsule suddenly began radiating intense, almost unbearable heat, quickly raising the temperature in the immediate area to a comfortable, almost balmy seventy-three.

_What happened?_ she thought, trying to remember what had happened to her._ Where am I? _

Misato did her best to force her mind around to the circumstances of her interment in ice, but even her mind felt numb, making cohesive thought next to impossible. After several minutes, however, a few details began to creep back into her consciousness.

_I remember being shot,_ she thought, sitting up cautiously and reaching around to feel a small circle of scar tissue on her lower back. _ I remember the attack on NERV but…_

Everything was hazy. Past the attack, and the gunshot wound, she remembered getting Shinji to an elevator… and the next thing she knew, she here. She groaned in frustration as she tried to remember more, glancing down and easily spotting the exit wound from her injury. Someone had taken the time to treat her, so she was clearly wanted alive, but in glancing around her freezing environment, it was also plain to see that whoever it was that had saved her… was long, long gone.

Looking around, Misato could see that, everything metallic was caked in rust, everything organic was rotted nearly to nothing, and everything plastic was dull and lacking in shine, hinting that she had been asleep for a very long time indeed.

Taking stock of her options, she operations director clambered carefully out of her capsule, biting back a yelp as her feet hit the freezing concrete. As quickly as she could, she hurried over to the tattered remains of a chair, tearing a hunk of what was once comfortable mesh fabric off and tying it clumsily to her feet.

_Better than nothing, _she thought grimly, _but I need to find some clothes, fast… or whoever did this patch job on my guts is going to roll over in their graves – mostly to make room for me to join them._

Shivering, and trying to stay as close to the heat generated by the capsule as she could, Misato padded over to the only active terminal and began reading.

"Subject…Katsuragi, Misato…" she murmured, her eyes easily flying over the dull green letters "Term of Cryogenic suspension…indefinite…?"

_Indefinite!_ she thought incredulously, _If whatever is happening at this base hadn't happened I would have been on ice forever! Wait a minute… what about Shinji and Asuka? Did anyone else make it? What about the EVAs?_

Further pondering on the subject was interrupted as Misato's teeth began to chatter violently. The computer indicated the year was AC195 – whatever that meant. It troubled Misato to think that she had been out so long that the calendar system had changed, but the need for warmth overruled her curiosity, forcing her to start back towards the capsule.

She came up short, however, as she noticed a body lying between the rows of terminals, out of her line of sight, until now. He looked like a soldier of some sort, though Misato did not recognize the uniform. It looked, she thought on closer inspection, like something from the seven years war, except it was black with white trousers, and heavily polished black boots. The solider bore many decorations, and a small badge set just below his shoulder, which read 'Specials.'

_Still warm,_ Misato thought, casting a nervous glance around as she pressed two fingers against the man's carotid artery. _Hope you don't mind if I borrow your clothes, soldier._

Misato shook her head sadly. Even in the future, it seemed, Man had not managed to free himself from the baser instincts. Certainly, the soldier did not need his clothes anymore… but his blank, glassy stare seemed to accuse her as she began to unbutton his jacket, whispering 'Graverobber! Thief! How dare you?'

"Sorry," Misato muttered, noticing and carefully prying an unfamiliar handgun from the soldier's already stiffening fingers, "don't take it personally, kid…"

- - - - -

Quatre Rabare Winner was a little pressed for time.

"Whoa!"

Throwing himself back against a wall, he barely dodged a rather accurate shot as, unfortunately for him in this case, 'pressed for time' translated into 'being chased by soldiers.' Thrusting his right hand forward, he opened fire with his own firearm, wincing as two distinct cries of pain followed his desperate shooting.

Though they were enemies, Quatre still hated to see anyone hurt.

Taking advantage of the momentary break his lucky shooting had earned him, Quatre turned and sprinted down the corridor, choosing a door at random and ducking inside without even bothering to see what kind of room it was.

He and one of his fellow Gundam pilots had stolen into this antiquated base in hopes of finding supplies, but they had not banked on having a platoon of OZ soldiers hot on their heels. In the resulting fracas, they had lost sight of each other.

Quatre hoped his friend was alright.

Footsteps pounded down the corridor outside the door, and Quatre tensed, but they tromped past without so much as slowing. _Better find another way out,_ he thought, finally turning to survey his surroundings, _they could come back at any ti… hello – what's this?_

The doorway opened to a five-foot corridor, which in turn led to a room filled with computer terminals and odd, ancient looking machinery. In the middle of the room he spied a tall woman with long, flowing dark hair. Her bare back was facing Quatre, and with an intense blush, he realized that the rest of her was bare as well – for the moment, anyway, as she seemed to be in the process of pulling on a pair of trousers liberated from a body on the floor in front of her.

He took a step closer, trying to get a better look at the woman's face (though deep in the recesses of his mind, he thought that seeing the rest of her would not be such a bad thing) but the faint scrape of his boot on the floor attracted the woman's attention. Immediately, her back went rigid, and slowly, she turned to stare at him over her porcelain shoulder.

Quatre wet his lips. "Er…"

Before he quite knew what was happening, Quatre found himself on the floor, staring up the barrel of his own gun, which had someway found its way into the woman's hand.

"Still got it," the woman muttered to herself under her breath. "You – what's your name? Where is this place?"

Quatre tried to lower his gaze from the woman's intense eyes, but found that this resulted in a quick flash of skin – some of it marred, he noticed absently, but a jagged scar – and intensifying the colour in his cheeks.

Noticing his discomfort, the woman chuckled, reaching down with her free hand and picking up the shirt she had been about to put on. "Calendar's different, but at least it's nice to know that guys still think the same." Awkwardly shrugging the shirt on by thrusting one hand into the sleeve and trading the gun into it, Misato said, "You're not a mute, are you? I need information."

With the woman's luscious body covered, Quatre found it much easier to speak.

"I…I…I'm sorry…I…I didn't…"

Still not easy, but easier.

The woman considered him for a minute, smiling faintly as he fumbled for words. "Cute," she murmured, lowering the gun a bit and offering him her free hand. "Guess I still have my figure."

Though still blushing, Quatre managed to regain a LITTLE composure. "I-I-I'm…really…sorry."

"It's okay." Misato grinned, keeping the gun ready, but no longer pointing it directly at the pilot. "It's actually kind of flattering. Now, um… what's your name?"

"I'm…Q-Quatre…Winner."

"Misato Katsuragi."

Silence fell as the two unconsciously began walking in a tight circle, sizing each other up like weary mongrels trying to decide between friend and foe. "Your accent," Quatre said finally, "where are you from, if you don't mind my asking?"

Misato's eyes flicked to the open pod, then back to the pilot. "Well," she said carefully, "based on the rust and cobwebs around here… I'd say it's less a question of WHERE than WHEN."

Quatre looked at the woman, then at the cryogenic pod. It looked VERY old, he decided, and there probably would not be any accurate way to find out exactly how long she was in there. The best he could hope for was extrapolation.

"When were you put in?"

Misato frowned and replied, "2016. What year is this anyway? I don't know how current the computer over there is."

Quatre walked over to the terminal she indicated, nodding to himself as he scanned the display. "No, it's current," he said softly, "AC stands for After Colony… so this base wasn't abandoned until at least AC 01, though this area looks even more disused than the rest of the place. How did you get in there, anyway?"

"Well," Misato said slowly, "I was at NERV headquarters, and we were under attack. I took a hit protecting my… umm… God, Shinji." She shook her head, forcing aside a sudden, powerful certainty that the boy she tended was probably hundreds of years in his grave. "Anyway, I got shot protecting someone, then I think I fell unconscious – and then I woke up here!" her eyes widened a little, "Wait a minute… do you know anything about the calendar before this AC one?"

"Umm, a little," Quatre said slowly, "if I remember our history courses right, they switched to the AC calendar around… hmm… was it 2220, or 2210? I'm pretty sure it was somewhere around-"

"400 years?" Misato exploded. "I've been in that damn thing for 400 hundred years?"

Quatre nodded, but his mind was going over something else the woman had said – something that reminded him of another history lesson. He waited patiently as the woman ran a hand through her long hair, muttering a string of curses the likes of which he had never heard, before asking his question.

"Did you say NERV?"

Misato looked at him sharply. "Yes," she nodded, "is it still standing? I can't imagine it would be after all this time."

"Well, no," Quatre admitted, "but I've heard of it. They taught us that in the last part of the old century, a group of lifeforms called 'angels' began attacking… and NERV, with their Evangelion robots, fought them off and saved us all from obliteration. No one know what happened to the Evangelions, though, and as far as I knew, all of the members of NERV died in the fight against the last angel."

"That's one way to look at it," Misato muttered bitterly, "of course, if you take that stance, the last angel is still alive and kicking."

"Huh?"

"Never mind." Misato rubbed her eyes. She was starting to get a headache. "Yes, a lot of us died," she said, glancing around at the rows of terminals, "but if I survived in one of these… I wonder if any of my friends did too.

"Possibly," Quatre nodded thoughtfully, "If you're here then there's a possibility that other survivors of NERV may be here too. It's logical to-"

Misato straightened suddenly, staring down at Quatre for a moment and causing him to stumble and cut himself off.

"W-what?" the pilot stammered, entirely intimidated by the woman's stature and intense, chocolate eyes.

"Can I trust you, Quatre Winner?" the woman whispered. "Right now… I'm alone in this place. I'll never survive without help." Slowly, she turned the gun around and offered it to Quatre, handle first. "I've been asleep a long time, but I'm not a stupid woman. That," she nodded to the body at her feet, "is a soldier – and he didn't die of natural causes. If I've woken up in the middle of a war, I'll need someone to show me which side is the right one, or how to stay alive, if there isn't a right side. If you can't, or won't help me, Mister Winner… then do me a favour and pull the trigger right now, because otherwise, you'll just be prolonging the inevitable."

Keeping his eyes on hers in spite of the urge to look away, Quatre reached out and wrapped his hand around the handle of the gun. "I promise that I will keep you alive," he said softly, pretending that he could not feel her fingertips brushing the back of his hand as she held the gun a moment longer.

He felt hot all over again as she flashed him a small, hopeful smile. "Thank you, Quatre," she said warmly, "but don't make promises you can't ke-"

Abruptly, the door Quatre had come through was flung open.

"Here!" a voice called out. "He's in here!"

With surprising speed, Misato dropped into a crouch and snatched up the fallen soldier's handgun, whipping it up and clicking off a shot before the newcomer could repeat his warning cry.

"Looks like we've got company," she said breathlessly, grabbing Quatre's shoulder and pushing him towards another door on the opposite side of the room. "You DO know how to use that, right?" she asked seriously, eyeing the gun in his hands, "Because I-"

The other door burst in, and before Misato could even think, Quatre stepped around her and pumped six rounds into the two soldiers coming through, sending them unceremoniously to the hard concrete before either could call for help. "Yeah," he murmured, averting his eyes, "I know how to use it."

Misato frowned at the sad look on the young man's face, but said nothing.

"Come on, let's go," Quatre mumbled, regaining his senses and hurrying towards the small door, "my friend should be around here somewhere… if we find him, we'll definitely get out." He lowered his voice to a whisper as Misato ducked through the door. "That guy won't LET himself die."

- - - - -

Heero Yuy checked the clip on his gun, pursing his lips as he counted six bullets. He briefly considered going back to where he had left the bodies of the OZ soldiers he had come across ten minutes prior to gather their weapons, but he discarded the idea as reckless. _Were one has fallen, others will gather,_ he thought, glancing around the room he had ducked into to gather his thoughts. _Like wild animals, perching near the corpses of their comrades in the hopes of ensnaring another predator._

That he was a predator, Heero did not deny. He knew that he was a killer… but unlike the soft-hearted Quatre, Heero had no real compunctions about killing. He would never harm an innocent, but anyone donning the uniform of a solider and taking up arms to oppress the weak was fair game, in his mind.

Besides, in war it was kill or be killed… and none of Heero's plans involved being killed.

_Need to find Quatre,_ he mused, running a finger along a row of computer terminals and glancing at the thick dust, _Knowing him, he's in a corner right now trying to talk to his killer and make him see reason. _

Heero blinked as one of the terminals abruptly flickered to life.

He whirled, raising his gun as something hummed behind him, a small section of the floor irising open as a smooth, cylindrical capsule rose into view. "What the…?"

Normally not a curious man, Heero had nonetheless been taught to be prepared for any contingency – and the dusty capsule represented an unknown factor that could easily throw any plans for escape off. Who knew what was inside? A bomb? An automated defence robot? Anything could be behind the plexiglass cover, and until Heero found out what it was, he was not willing to turn his back on it.

Cautiously, he approached the capsule, weary of a trap as he reminded himself that it had not come into view until he walked through the door. Frowning slightly, he used his arm to wipe a swatch of dust away from the capsule's cover. Peering inside, he was surprised to find himself gazing at a young girl. She appeared to be his own age, with light blue hair framing an almost ethereal, clear-skinned face. Her chest, Heero noticed, did not move so much as a centimetre as he watched, indicating that whoever she was, she had moved on from this world.

_It's not my business._ Heero thought, giving the girl a final, appraising glance. _Rest easy._

Walking past the barely functioning terminal, however, he noticed that the screen had changed. 'Security breach has progressed to level Gamma,' it read, 'Resuscitation in progress… three minutes remaining. Standby…'

"Subject, Ayanami Rei," Heero murmured, reading the lower part of the screen, "Term of Cryogenic suspension: indefinite." He glanced back at the capsule.

_Not my business,_ he told himself, looking back to where the timer was slowly counting down. _Walk away._

In spite of this cold, methodical thought, Heero found himself moving in the opposite direction, walking up to the cryogenic capsule and standing at its side as the computer terminal silently reached zero.

With a hiss that made Heero step back and half-raise his gun, the capsule slid open, washing the inside with chill air. For a moment, nothing happened. Then, without warning, the girl's back arched up off the bed, her lungs drawing deep, then releasing as eyes the colour of blood fluttered open.

The girl focused on Heero almost immediately, making no move to cover herself or escape from the strange man gazing at her utterly defenceless, completely naked form.

"Who are you?" she asked finally, her voice as cool and emotionless as Heero's own.

"Heero Yuy," Heero replied truthfully, noticing that the capsule had begun to warm up – most likely to keep its occupant comfortable as she recovered. "And you are… Rei Ayanami."

The girl did not look surprised, though she did murmur, "How did you know my name?"

Heero tilted his head towards the terminal.

Rei nodded her understanding, and without another word, she climbed out of the capsule, glancing around the room as she shivered slightly in the cold air. "Who are you, Heero Yuy?" she asked softly, turning her crimson gaze on the young man. "From my understanding, this is a secure facility… though it appears to have been abandoned for some time."

Meeting her gaze head-on, Heero replied, "Who I am is unimportant. Come with me… if you don't get some cloths on, you will freeze to death."

"I understand," Rei said smoothly.

Regarding the terminal for a moment – in particular the word cryogenic – Heero murmured, "Miss Ayanami… what year were you placed into that capsule?"

"2016," Rei said calmly. "What is the present year?"

Heero considered lying to the girl. In his experience, people tended to be excited by the delivery of sudden, shocking information. Ultimately, however, he decided that it was best to go with the truth.

He had never been very good at dishonesty anyway.

"It is After Colony 195… approximately 400 years after your entrance into that capsule."

Rei's response was anything but shocked – in fact, she seemed downright uncaring.

"I see."

Unable to resist the pull of curiosity this time, Heero murmured, "That doesn't… bother you at all?"

Shivering slightly, Rei absently rubbed her arms. "The passage of time is not something I have any control over," she explained calmly, "what would it benefit me to-"

"Shh!" Heero cut her off as he heard a soft scraping sound outside the door. Mouthing, 'don't move,' he pressed himself back up against the wall just inside the door, making his body absolutely still as Rei stood exactly where she had been told.

Slowly, the door was pushed inward, and an OZ soldier stepped into the room, first blinking, then rubbing his eyes as he found himself staring at a very nude young woman. Before the soldier could decide if he was dreaming or not, Heero made his move, cracking the soldier sharply across the back of the head with the butt of his pistol.

Rei and Heero stared thoughtfully at the solider for a moment. "He's not much taller than you," Heero observed, giving Rei a polite bow as she nodded in reply, "please hurry… we should be leaving this place as soon as possible."

Though he knew it was impolite, Heero kept his eyes on Rei as she removed the soldier's uniform and began pulling it on. She had been asleep for 400 hundred years… but that did not automatically make her harmless, and Heero had long ago learned that one should never, NEVER judge a book by its cover. Making their exit from the small room, Heero kept Rei well within sight.

Just in case.

- - - - -

Quatre and Misato had checked five rooms so far, but it was not until the sixth that they came upon the familiar configuration of a cryogenic room. "This place is huge," Quatre mumbled under his breath, wiping something suspiciously brown and coppery off of a terminal that was already glowing with life. "let's see… this one is…"

Misato glanced over his shoulder, mouthing, 'Subject: Aoba, Shigeru… Term of Cryogenic suspension…indefinite. Resuscitation commencing in 10 seconds.'

"Just in time," she said brightly, unconsciously squaring her shoulders in anticipation. She had never been very close to Shigeru – but a familiar face was a familiar face… if she had to spend a lifetime in a new era, it would be nice to spend it with at least ONE person she knew.

As the countdown reached zero, however, the computer gave a sullen blip.

'System failure,' the terminal read, 'redundant circuits Alpha to Theta… compromised.'

"What does that mean?" Misato whispered urgently, licking her lips as a new string of text – meaningless mumbo-jumbo to her – flashed across the screen.

"Not sure," Quatre admitted. "It's… oh, there it goes – it's opening."

The capsule hissed, but as the top slid open, a horrible smell assailed Misato's nose. It reminded her of old linen and dusty spaces – of things left to rot in the dark… like Aoba, it seemed.

"Oh God…"

Quatre looked away from the mummified corpse in the cryogenic capsule, shaking his head as he spotted a long, jagged crack in the plexiglass cover. _At least he didn't suffer,_ he thought, awkwardly putting a hand on Misato's arm. _Well… I HOPE he didn't suffer. God, imagine waking up in the dark and… no, don't think about it!_

To take his mind off of the horrifying idea of smothering to death in a plexiglass tomb, Quatre turned to Misato. "I'm so sorry," he whispered sincerely, trying to smile as she wiped at her eyes, "don't be sad, ok? You survived, so there have to be others who-"

"I'm not sad," Misato cut in, her voice just a shade too uneven, "I'm angry! Aoba didn't deserve this – none of us deserved this! Shoved underground and left to rot for hundreds of years – for eternity, according to these stupid computers! Why… God, why were we put here? Why not just put us out of our misery! This way, we couldn't even get to Heav-"

She cut herself off, paling as a horrible, gruesome thought occurred to her.

Maybe that was the plan. Maybe this was their punishment for 'defying God' – an unending, dreamless sleep, waiting endlessly for a wakeup call that would never come, until the Earth, the Moon, and the stars themselves were dead and gone, leaving only a dried out husk of a planet where a handful of sinners who had dared to dream of saving their race unknowingly whiled away eternity.

She shuddered, pushing the thought violently away. _There has to be another answer,_ she thought desperately, _no one's that cruel – not even the Commander._

"Come on," Quatre said gently, "let's check the next room. If the others are waking up, it would be nice if there was someone they knew waiting for them, huh?"

"Yeah…" Misato wiped her eyes, reluctantly returning Quatre's hesitant smile. "Yeah, you're right."

Leaving Aoba's remains, they made their way to the next room… but as they pushed the door open, they found themselves staring down the barrel of a gun. Misato tensed, but as she looked past the person aiming his weapon at her, a broad smile of relief broke out on her face.

"Rei!"

She was barely aware of Quatre murmuring, "Heero, it's ok, she's not with OZ!" as she pushed past the young man and gathered Rei into a tight embrace.

"Are you all right?" she asked, running her hands all over Rei's face and shoulders. "I thought I was the only one who made it… are you ok? Come on, say something, Rei!"

Frowning faintly at the foreign – though not entirely unpleasant – contact, Rei whispered, "I am fine, Major."

"Major?" the young man who was with Rei murmured. "Earth Sphere?"

"Heero," Quatre stepped in, "This is Misato Katsuragi… she's with NERV."

Heero glanced at Misato, then Rei. "NERV," he repeated, "mm… THAT NERV, then?"

Quatre nodded.

"And… do you know why you are here?" Heero asked, addressing both Rei and Misato at the same time.

Receiving only head shaking as a response, Heero fell silent. _Too many variables,_ he thought grimly, _we need time to figure this all out – but I doubt they will leave without their comrades, if there are any more of them._ He glanced thoughtfully at Misato, finding her studying him openly. _This one seems to be capable of handling herself, but Rei… she moves strangely._

Heero could not explain this thought any better, but there was definitely something deceptively normal about the way the blue-haired girl carried herself. If he had not known better, Heero would have pegged her as a mobile suit pilot. He knew of the Evangelion robots, of course, but so little of their history had been recorded that he had no idea what the pilots might be like.

_Perhaps she is a pilot after all._

"Quatre," he said absently, giving Misato an acknowledging nod, "This is Rei Ayanami… I found her in that capsule over there." As Quatre introduced himself, Heero added, "This place is not safe… we should leave as soon as we can."

He knew it was a proposition that was bound to meet with objection, and sure enough, no sooner had the words left his mouth than Quatre was shaking his head.

"There might be others," Quatre said apologetically, "if there are any here, I'm going to help Misato look for them."

Heero sighed as Quatre and Misato walked out of the room. "Of course," he murmured, noticing that Rei had made no move to leave him – out of obligation for helping her, or out of a similar desire to leave without checking for survivors, he was not sure, but having her stay filled him with an unexpected flash of gratitude. Arching an eyebrow at the girl, he glanced to where Misato and Quatre were waiting just outside the door.

Rei stepped next to Heero. "It would be… tactically advantageous for us to stay together, would it not?" she asked smoothly.

Nodding reluctantly, Heero whispered, "You're right. Please stay close to me."

"I understand."

Together, the foursome struck off down the hall, moving as quickly as possible as all present agreed that any rescuing should be done as quickly as possible.

- - - - -

Sneaking through the abandoned base proved to be quite tricky, as the OZ soldiers were very persistent. Several times, Misato's group was forced to go to ground as a handful of soldiers stomped past, clearly looking for them. In one room, the found the remains of Makoto Hyuga, his capsule damaged in much the same way as Aoba's though far more recently, producing a stench of death and decay so powerful that even Rei wrinkled her nose in distaste.

The next room, however, yielded a pleasant surprise.

'Open capsule,' Heero mouthed, jerking his head in the direction of the far side of the room and motioning for Misato to go in alone. 'We'll wait.'

Misato nodded gratefully. Better to meet one, familiar face than a group, she figured.

"Hello?" she called out hesitantly, keeping her voice as low as possible. "Hello, is someone in here?"

_Maybe they already left?_ she thought, frowning as she remembered the groups of soldiers moving around the base.

Seeing nothing eye-catching, she was on the verge of leaving… until a harsh, broken voice croaked, "M…sato?"

From behind a pile of junked terminals, a small figure rose up.

"Shinji?" Misato gasped, recognizing the boy immediately, "SHINJI?"

The Third Child groaned weakly as Misato rushed over to him, wrapping her arms around his shivering frame and pulling him into her arms. "Th-thought everyone was dead," he hitched, "I thought I was the only person left alive! Th-then… then there were people shouting, and I was scared, and I…"

"Shh," Misato shushed him as he broke into tears, not noticing the others as they quietly slipped into the room. "Shinji, please… I need you to listen."

Though she knew that the boy was in a fragile state of mind, Misato had no choice but to explain their situation to him, hastily letting him go as she remembered that their last conversation had ended in a rather bold kiss. _That was 400 years ago,_ she told herself wryly, _he's forgotten it by now, right?_

"We've… acquired more uniforms," Quatre said distastefully as soon as the introductions were through, "couple soldiers tried to jump us as soon as you walked into the room."

"Man, you guys are quiet," Misato marvelled, "I didn't even hear a thing!"

Heero's grim smile sent a chill down her spine. "When we have to be," he said levelly, "but we can make a lot of noise if we need to."

Knowing nothing yet of the Gundams, Misato only nodded.

Several more rooms revealed empty capsules, but from the dust inside, it was clear to see that these had never been used. As they approached a door near the back of the base, however, loud curses and crashes could be heard streaming through the narrow opening.

"Now I know that voice," Misato nearly laughed. "Come on…"

Pushing the door open, they found themselves faced with an odd scene. A redheaded teenager was systematically smashing everything in sight, throwing terminal monitors, bashing things with the remains of chairs, and kicking anything that was not bolted down as a litany of German and Japanese curse words poured from her mouth.

"Gott," she grunted, heaving another monitor onto the floor, "dumkopf NERV! Baka Evangelions. SHIESSE! Put me in a… goddamn freezer… stick me under ground…" she paused, wiping sweat from her lip, "…hope their all dead!"

"Sorry to disappoint you."

Asuka Langley Sohryu nearly jumped out of her skin, her anger vanishing in an instant as the first familiar voice she had heard since waking up reached her ears. "…Misato?"

"The one and only," Misato replied, grinning as Asuka whirled to face her. "Four hundred years old, and still looking good, kid."

"Four hundred…" Asuka trailed off, hiding her elation quickly as she spotted, "Wondergirl… you're here. How… nice."

"Hello Pilot Sohryu," Rei replied flatly.

A sudden silence fell as the pilots all regarded themselves, and slowly, a bright red flush came over Asuka's face. "Do you people MIND!" she shouted. "It's freezing in here! Stop gawking and get me some goddamn CLOTHES!"

"Same old Asuka…" Misato sighed as Quatre uttered a surprised squawk and instinctively shielded his face. "Here – you'll have to roll up the sleeves, but it's all we have."

As she dressed, Asuka listened, offering no comment until Misato had finished explaining just exactly how screwed they seemed to be. "So," she said hesitantly, "did umm… what about Shinji?"

Shinji, who had been lurking in the small corridor leading to the room, leaned in. "I'm he-"

Before he could finish, Asuka had stomped over to him and raised her hand, her eyes glittering as she stared him down. Instead of slapping him, however, she slowly put her hand on the wall, leaning closer to him and casting her voice for his ears only. "I'm glad you're not dead," she whispered. Before Shinji could reply, Asuka was pushing back from the wall. "Don't look down my shirt, you perv!" she muttered, pretending she had said nothing else.

"Well? Are we leaving this dump or what?"

- - - - -

On the threshold of the last room on the level, Shinji was brought up short by a hand clapped roughly over his mouth. He started to squirm, but Misato's voice hissed, "Shh!" in his ear.

Belatedly, he noticed that the door was standing half open, and through the narrow crack, a soldier's profile could be seen. The man was facing into the room, but there was a rifle slung over his shoulder within easy reach. Had he stepped into the room, Shinji knew suddenly, he would have been either dead or captured before he could say a word.

"Listen," Quatre hissed, gesturing the others to press up against the wall. Angling for a better look through the gap in the door, he spotted three soldiers inside – as far as he could see. One was inspecting a terminal like the one he had seen with the other cryogenic capsules, and the other two stood flanking the door.

"Okay Lieutenant," the solider by the terminal said, "I think I can force the reanimation process."

"This one's dead probably just like the others…" the soldier Quatre could see muttered. "Those weird mobile suits we found seem to be intact, though."

"Actually," the Lieutenant corrected, "they're called Evangelions."

"Evangelions? You mean-"

"That's right."

"Wow…"

"Imagine," the Lieutentent gloated, "Technology lost for almost four centuries – and we got our hands on five of them. Those Gundams won't stand a chance."

As they trailed off, Quatre gave Heero a significant glance. Heero nodded, tightening his hold on his gun and pointing to the guard that was visible through the crack in the door. Quatre pursed his lips, frowning as he made a clubbing motion with his fist. Heero rolled his eyes, but reversed his hold on the pistol.

"Ok, here we go," the soldier by the terminal announced, "Name's Maya Ibuki… if she's alive, she should be waking up in… twenty seconds."

Everyone waited tensely, letting out a collective sigh of relief at the final report.

"Yeah, she's alive… should I call it in, Lieutenant?"

The soldier frowned.

"Lieutenant…?"

Glancing around, he was just in time to take in the image of his commanding officer slumped against the wall before the grip of a handgun came rushing into his line of sight.

"Oh man," Misato winced as the soldier collapsed in a heap, "that looked like it hurt…"

"I hope so," Heero muttered, wasting no time in stripping the man of his uniform.

The NERV personnel gathered around the capsule, waiting breathlessly as the brown haired woman inside gasped and sat bolt upright. "M-Major…?"

Misato helped the woman out of the capsule. "Shh," she whispered, "I'll explain everything… though it's a lot to take in."

"Here, Miss Ibuki," Shinji murmured, handing her the uniform Heero had 'liberated,' "it's umm… good to see you…"

Blushing at her nudity, the Third Child quickly scurried away, allowing the tech a moment of privacy in which to dress.

When Maya had finished changing, she noticed Heero and Quatre. "Are they… Children?" she asked with some confusion.

Misato blinked, noticing for the first time exactly how young her rescuer and his associate were. "Er, not exactly," she said, scratching her head, "actually… I'm not exactly sure… what DO you guys do?"

"Fishermen," Heero muttered flatly, "simple fishermen."

"Riiight," Misato murmured, deciding that this was not the best time to press the issue. "Ok, so here's the situation… there are five EVAs here, and we only have three pilots."

Heero nodded to himself, satisfied with his intuition that Rei was a pilot, and listened intently to the rest of Misato's speech.

"Most likely, they are Units 01, 02, and possibly some of the 05 series – they must have survived Asuka's attack." At this, Asuka shot Misato a nasty glare, but Misato simply concluded, "so, since we can't take them with us, that leaves us only two truly viable options."

"It would be dangerous to let OZ have them," Heero said flatly. "Very dangerous."

"Ok," Misato shrugged, "one viable option."

Clenching her right hand into a fist, she looked around at the others.

"We'll have to destroy them."

TBC

Random's Notes: I kind of felt guilty writing about Aoba and Hyouga dying… but at the same time, it kind of felt pretty good. Poor bridge bunnies can win for losing, eh? The delay on this chapter was entirely my fault. I'll try to get 3 done a little faster.


	3. Escape

**Awakenings**

**Chapter 2 – Escape**

"Everybody FREEZE!"

The OZ technicians manning the control room of the abandoned base whirled around as a grim-faced woman with purple hair stormed into the room, brandishing a pistol as another woman followed her in.

"Uh-uh!" the woman warned, pointing her gun at the head technician tried to discretely slip his hand under the desk. "Don't even think about it, genius – I was pulling stunts like that when your great-great-great-great-great-grandfather was still a glint in HIS great-great-great-great-grandfather's eye! Stand up – everyone line up against that wall, hands behind your backs. Move it!"

As the technicians shuffled over to the wall, Maya stepped forward, slipping into the decaying command chair with a grimace of distaste, biting her bottom lip in concentration, she began to type, her eyes scanning the screen as several of the techs gasped at her typing speed.

She was not Akagi's favourite for nothing.

"Oh no," she groaned, "they've already taken Unit 01 with them, and some of the other EVAs as well – and these people were scrambling the data! I can't ID which Units were taken, what's left, nothing."

"Thorough little bastards, aren't they?" Misato grumbled, casting a baleful eye at the now-nervous technicians. "Nothing to be done about it now, just clear a path to the cages for Heero to do his part, and unlock any of the cages that are still occupied."

"Yes ma'am," Maya nodded, typing for a moment before hesitantly saying, "Um Major?"

"Hm?"

"Do you think the Children will be alright with Quatre?"

"Don't worry," Misato said evenly, "he's given me his assurances they'll be okay."

"And you trust him, ma'am?"

Misato shrugged. "Yeah," she said softly, "but don't ask me why, because the best you'll get out of me is 'because I don't have anyone else I can trust right now.'"

Maya nodded. "No, that makes sense," she said, typing quickly on the keyboard. "If it wasn't for those two, we would have been taken captive like Unit 01 and whoever else those OZ people managed to get their hands on."

"I'm almost there," Heero's voice crackled over the liberated comm. link. "Five minutes."

"Roger that," Misato replied, slipping back into the role of Operations Director as easily as an old pair of jeans. "Not that I need to tell you this, but make sure you give us enough time to get out of here – I'm not a 'let's go down with the ship' kind of girl."

"Understood."

Silence fell for a moment as Maya tapped out a few more commands, but it was broken as she softy murmured, "Umm… ma'am?"

"Hmm?"

"…I don't believe he's a fisherman at all."

( 0 0 0 )

Heero worked quickly to place the bombs he was carrying around the remaining mecha. _Wasteful,_ he thought, slipping into the shadow created by a huge red and white shoulder fin, _these machines are enormous. Their power must be in keeping with their size. If only there was more time, we could actually secure one or two – these could inflict some serious damage on OZ, and they would never see it coming._

He waited patiently as the guard he was hiding from prowled past.

Time was of the essence… he did not have any to waste on taking care of a bunch of armed guards – not that he couldn't, of course, but there were other factors to consider.

As soon as the coast was clear, Heero eased out of the shadows, pressing the last of his bombs neatly under the arm of the machine whose shadow he was hiding in and wondering if the amount of explosives he was using would be enough. _The armour looks thick,_ he mused, gazing up at the mecha's odd, four-eyed face. _To be sure, I would have liked to have about twice this many mines…_

Checking his watch, he shook his head.

"No time."

Stealing a glance around the hanger, he lamented the fact that retreat was their only option. If they'd only had more time, he was sure they could have taken at least one of the powerful-looking EVAs. Now his only recourse was to find the units that OZ had managed to obtain and make sure they met the same fate as these.

( 0 0 0 )

With a wince, Quatre struck the last remaining guard a glancing blow with the butt of his gun, watching the OZ trooper sag to the ground before quickly scanning the area for any more. "Shinji, Rei, Asuka," he called in a hushed tone, "it looks clear now… we're going for that transport right there. Hurry and get on board, I'll wait here for the others."

"Got it," Asuka said quickly, her eyes gleaming as she grabbed Shinji by the hand and hurried him towards the plane, not even glancing Rei's direction as she moved.

Quatre scratched his head.

There was clearly a lot of history between the three, but the dynamic was a bit hazy. One minute, Asuka seemed like she could not stand Shinji's guts, the next minute she was taking him by the hand to make sure he did not get left behind. Rei seemed almost as cool and brutal as Heero, though perhaps not as ruthless, and Shinji… Shinji just seemed scared.

_I feel bad for him,_ Quarte mused, _frozen for four hundred years, woken up in the middle of a war. That's gotta be hard_. _Maybe when we get somewhere quiet I can talk to him, kind of find out what he's-_

"You've let your guard down."

Quatre nearly jumped out of his skin as Heero slipped out of a heating vent overhead, dropping to the ground less than four feet from Quatre's nose.

"If I'd wanted to, I could have snapped your neck before you got a shot off."

"G-good thing you're on my side, huh?" Quatre said weakly.

"Mm," Heero hummed, surveying the scene. "The charges are planted. We have ten more minutes."

"Well, the pilots are in the plane," Quatre said, thankful to have a topic other than his ineptness to discuss, "I'm just waiting for Misato and Maya."

Heero checked his watch. "Four minutes," he said levelly, "then we leave."

Nodding, Quatre said, "I'm sure they'll be here by then."

Though Heero did not say it, Quatre was sure he would leave the others behind in less than a heartbeat if it conflicted with his own goals. _Ice,_ Quatre thought sadly, _it's like his whole heart is made of ice._

"I'll be onboard, warming up the engines," Heero said briskly. "Three minutes, Quatre…"

"Yeah," Quatre said glumly, "I understand."

He checked his own watch, biting his lip nervously as the seconds ticked past.

"Come on," he muttered under his breath, "come o-"

"Hey, shouldn't we be going?"

Quatre squawked as a hand came down on his shoulder. "Oh, Miss Misato!" he blurted. "You scared me…!"

Misato grinned, dropping the young man a wink as she replied, "I do that to a lot of guys. Let's get the hell out of here – this place smells like old cheese…"

Nodding with relief, Quatre quickly agreed.

( 0 0 0 )

"Rei, Asuka, Shinji – everyone buckle up!"

Misato dropped into one of the seats on the small transport plane and followed her own advice, strapping the X shaped harness across her chest as Heero and Quatre climbed into the pilots seats.

"You boys _can_ fly this thing, right?" she asked suddenly. "I mean, I don't want to insult you or anything… but you _can_ fly it… right?"

"Don't worry," Quatre said assured her, "you're in good hands."

"We're going."

Shinji let out a squawk of surprise as the plane lurched forward.

"She told you to buckle up, idiot," Asuka muttered, wrapping her fingers tightly around her own seatbelt as Shinji scrambled to get into a seat. "Pay attention!"

Heero pushed the throttle further forward, and the plane began to pick up speed. "Runway looks clear," he murmured. "Are we armed?"

"Umm, side guns," Quatre reported, "two hundred cal."

"Man the right side."

Misato paled as she glanced out of the front of the plane. "Company?"

Coming down from the right were two winged shapes, heading straight for their location with obvious intent.

"Someone must have gotten loose enough to sound an alarm," Heero muttered, ramming the throttle all the way forward. "It's nothing we can't handle."

With the throttle open all the way, the plane roared forward, its wings quivering slightly in protest to the sudden acceleration.

"What are those…?"

Misato watched in fascination as the two winged forms closed on their position. They looked faintly humanoid… though far too small to be EVAs.

"Robots…?"

No one answered her curious musings.

"They're almost here," Quatre reported, "Heero… we've gotta go!"

"Yes, I know," Heero grumbled. "Get ready to open fire."

"…roger."

With a sickening shudder, the plane lurched into the air.

"They passed under us!" Quatre called. "I can't see them!"

"Understood."

"Wahh!"

Misato felt her lunch (was it lunch if it was four centuries ago?) nearly leave her stomach as the transport plane abruptly rolled on its side. Automatic gunfire burst from the right of the plane, rattling the entire transport.

"Got one," Quatre shouted, "the other one's moving around to the left!"

"Understood."

"Hurk!"

Somewhere behind her, Misato heard someone emptying their stomach… and considering the fact that the plane had just spun upside down, she could not blame them.

The plane's machinegun spoke a second time, and immediately, a huge roaring explosion filled the air.

"Quatre," Heero called, "we've been hit. Everyone brace yourselves."

"Damn…"

"What's going on?"

"We've been caught by a piece of shrapnel. We have to make an emergency landing."

"Oh why meeeee…!"

The landing proved very rough. The plane shook and bounced, rattling the passengers around and only coming to a stop after leaving a long, deep furrow of plowed earth in its wake. As soon as they were down, Heero and Quatre unbuckled themselves to check on the others.

"Are you alright?" asked Quatre

"I'm fine, Shinji?" Misato asked

"I'm okay, Ayanami are you alright?"

"Yes."

"Ibuki?"

"A few bruises I think…" Maya said. "You alright Asuka?"

Asuka simply grunted an affirmative.

"Well," Misato said, "you know what they say – any landing you can walk away from is a good one, and all that."

"Who says that, exactly?" Heero muttered, flexing his hand a few times as if making sure it was not broken before offering it to Rei. "My feeling is that a landing in which you ruin your craft cannot be considered 'good.'"

Misato rolled her eyes. "Maybe you'd prefer being blown to bits like those robots that were chasing us?"

"Those weren't robots," Quatre corrected evenly; "they were mobile suits."

"So they were piloted by humans?"

"Yes."

"…oh."

"Is that a problem for you?" Heero asked softly, helping Rei to her feet as he eyed the older woman.

Misato cleared her throat.

It was so much easier when it was angels.

"Kill or be killed, right?" she said quietly, a little unnerved by the sudden quiet her statement brought. "I know I don't really care for the 'be killed' option – especially not after surviving a few hundred years under ground… so I guess we do what we have to do, right?"

"Correct."

Rubbing her eyes, Misato was about to speak when Shinji's stomach let out a loud, angry rumble.

"Say," she said, thankful for a change in topic, "You guys don't have anything to eat, do you?"

( 0 0 0 )

Colonel Suboru Arakawa inspected the reports he received from his men. At least, he mused, the operation was _partly_ successful. If they had walked away with absolutely nothing, regardless of the opposition they faced, the higher-ups would have had his head on a silver platter – or at the very least, his stripes.

He had already ordered the machine labelled Unit 01 and that Evangelion Scientist, Doctor Akagi, to be transported by convoy to the Villanova Base. The other Eva unit had been sent to Arclight Base in Russia, a tactic Arakawa felt was needlessly overcautious.

As if anyone would be stupid enough to attack one of their convoys.

"Orders are orders," he muttered, taking a final glance at the report on Akagi. It said she was supposed to be a very smart woman. He was glad he had instructed those travelling with her to keep her in the dark.

An uninformed opponent was a harmless opponent, in Arakawa's opinion, and until he had been given the chance to interrogate Akagi personally, he wanted her contact with the outside world kept to a minimum.

Better safe than sorry, after all.

Reluctantly, he picked up the phone and began dialling. It was time to make his two reports – one to Romefeller… the other to Lorenz.

( 0 0 0 )

They set up camp in some nearby woods, gathering firewood and chatting about light topics like favourite foods and weather conditions as Quatre mulled over just how to approach the topic of what to do next. It had been days since he and Heero had returned to Earth and had to leave Wing Zero behind. Trowa was most likely dead, though Quatre still would not give up hope, no matter how Heero insisted that he let the memory of the other pilot go.

They never heard what happened to Duo or Wufei.

When they had a nice, blazing fire going, Quarte and Heero broke out some of the emergency rations they had stolen from the base, sharing them around and watching curiously as the newly-reanimated NERV personnel tore into them, making them disappear in what must have been record time.

Suspended animation, Quatre reasoned, must create quite an appetite.

"So," Misato said, finally breaking the silence that had fallen, "what kind of tackle do you boys prefer? …when you're doing all your fishing, I mean."

Heero and Quatre exchanged glances.

"I prefer fly fishing," Heero said immediately. "Quatre is more of a-"

"Heero," Quatre cut in gently, "just stop." He sighed as the other pilot grunted and poked his stick into the fire, stirring the coals around with a very annoyed look on his face. "What do you think of us so far?" Quatre asked lightly. "I mean… you're not… scared of us, or anything, are you?"

Misato snorted. "No," she said dryly, "not particularly. Are you two… what, ex-military? Deserters from this OZ group or something? You're a bit young for that, but hey – it _has_ been a few centuries since I was involved in combat action, and as you can see," she lifted her chin in Shinji's direction, "my soldiers were pretty damn young."

Heero assessed Shinji for a moment, rolling his eyes as the boy gave him a sickly smile.

Somehow, he took issue with designating this weak little boy a 'soldier.' The redhead? The blue-haired one? Misato herself? Absolutely – any one of them seemed perfectly willing and able to end the life of anyone that stood between them and their goals, but this Shinji character, and the technician girl, Maya, would no more be able to point a gun than single-handedly construct a Gundam.

"We're pilots."

When the young man said nothing more, Misato prompted, "Pilots of what, exactly?"

"Gundams."

Misato rubbed her eyes. "Ok, let's pretend, just for a minute, that I've been in cryo-_freaking-_genic suspension for oh, say, _hundreds_ of years, and I have no idea what OZ is, what a Gundam is, and what's happening with the world in general, and _then_ explain things to me, hm?"

Heero and Quatre exchanged another glance.

"This could take a while," Quatre said softly, "you might want to sit down…"

Misato stood at first, more out of simple stubbornness than anything else, but as Quartre carefully laid out the realities of the world as it was now – the colonies, the invasion, the oppression, the Gundams, the Gundam Scientists, their missions, and everything in between – she found that sitting was definitely a preferable option.

( 0 0 0 )

Ritsuko Akagi sat in the back of a large truck, surrounded by boxes with helpful labels like 'medical,' and 'armoury.' From what she could gather, she was being escorted to some military base, and while the answers she tried to get from the guard sharing the back of the truck with her were short and rather uninformative, she was at least able to ascertain that she was somewhere in the future, though just how far she was unable to reason out, as the calendar date the man gave her meant absolutely nothing.

_At least they still speak Japanese_, she thought as the truck continued to trundle along, _that's something anyway… and there's still civilization of some sort – you don't get guns that well maintained in a nomadic society. Heh… guess the old men on the committee were wrong, huh? Colony of worthlessness or not, we still manage to sur-_

Her thoughts were interrupted by a loud, rather close explosion.

The truck lurched to a sudden halt.

"What the-"

The harsh stutter of automatic gunfire tore the air, accompanied by the pinging of bullets on metal. Ritsuko instinctively covered her head, ducking down as low as she could get as the guard threw the back of the truck open and swung his rifle from left to right in a vain search for something to shoot.

A moment later, the guard was yanked out of the truck, leaving Ritsuko alone.

"I'm unarmed!" she called, raising her hands as a long barrel poked through the truck's door.

Cautiously, an oriental woman with her hair done up in twin braids poked her face into the back of the truck.

"Who are you?" the woman demanded, checking for other passengers with her eyes before returning her focus to the blonde in the back of the truck.

"Dr. Ritsuko Akagi," Ritsuko replied immediately, gathering from the woman's tense expression and rather heavy-looking assault rifle that she was not a person to be coy with.

"Sally Po," the woman said briskly, keeping the rifle trained on Ritsuko's gut. "Are you a POW, or a deserter? Quickly, woman, I don't have time to wait around."

Ritsuko pursed her lips, displeased by this rough interrogation, but knowing it would be best to reply quickly.

She did not, after all, have a death wish.

"Neither – I'm a scientist. I was in cryogenic suspension for… some time, I don't know how long exactly, and I was just awakened. I have no idea who these people are, I have no idea who you are, and my only concern at this point is seeing if any of my co-workers or subordinates managed to survive the hibernation process, or if I'm the only one."

Sally blinked. "Wow," she muttered, finally lowering the gun a bit, though keeping her finger firmly on the trigger, "you talk a lot."

Ritsuko shrugged.

"You asked."

Taking a quick look around, Sally said, "Alright… Doctor, let me explain your situation, and your options. I'm an enemy of the people who have you in custody, and I'm taking this truck and all of its contents as spoils of war. Now you can either get off here, or come with me, the choice is yours. You say you're from the past?" she waited for Ritsuko to nod. "Well, I don't know anything about that, but I do know that the people I work with could use the help of another doctor, medical or otherwise, and if you're being held against your will… I'm guessing our goals are at least similar, if not identical, for now anyway."

"Agreed," Ritsuko said, climbing out of the back of the truck as Sally backed up to make room for her. "Do you think you could point that thing somewhere else, though? I'm a non-combatant."

"Sure you are," Sally muttered. "Relax – I can't hold a gun on you and drive at the same time, but just so you know, I'll run the whole truck into a tree if you try anything funny, and make sure it hits on your side."

Ritsuko gave her a dry smile. "Don't worry," she said flatly. "If you can believe it, talking with you has been the most pleasant experience I've had since waking up, and as for doing anything funny… let's just say I left my sense of humour in the past. Literally."

Sally nodded, making for the cab of the truck as the blonde woman went around to the other side. They climbed in and Sally fired it up, giving the other woman a sidelong glance as she buckled her seatbelt. _What a strange woman,_ she thought critically. _Really, cryogenic suspension? Either she's a loony, or a terrible liar – but if she really IS a doctor, we can definitely use her._

"Sally," Ritsuko said suddenly, "may I ask you something?"

Sally shifted the stolen truck into gear, barely sparing the blonde a quick, cursory look before murmuring, "Sure, what is it?"

Ritsuko leaned a bit closer, wetting her lips in an almost seductive manner before whispering the only question that seemed to mean anything to her at that moment in time.

"Do you have anything to eat…?"

Continued…

Random's notes: Grey didn't get this chapter to me for a while, so I'll only take half of the blame for it taking so long, and I fully plan to use the dual excuses of school starting and being really busy with another project to account for the rest of the time. It's a little shorter than last chapter, I think, but I'm happy with it.

Grey's notes: In the original draft of this I had trouble with this chapter I am grateful for Random's assistance.


End file.
